It's Been a Bit Quiet - Let's Shake it Up!

June 14th 2012|Written by Suzanna Soyinka|

Hey all, just a friendly update from the CCS development team. I realize a lot of people have been expecting CCS 1.0.5 since oh...around last December. But, we ran into so many issues over the last half a year that we've literally been constantly having to adapt in the process of fixing bugs with the 1.0.4 meter that it has just dragged out quite a bit longer than we actually planned for. Or could have ever anticipated.

So, here's a quick preview of what you can expect Soon™:

CCS 1.0.5 Release Feature Updates:
- Major bug fix process pass that addresses about 98.7% of the reproducible bugs in the 1.0.4 version meter.
- Balance pass for racial and class skills
- New uncrackable security schema that will not allow illegitimate objects to gain access to the CCS communications system in any manner. Sorry hackers, your link_snooping/prim spoofing won't work anymore, but thanks for playing.
- New HUD system design for better visual flow in combat. The new HUD also takes up far less "screen real estate," making it less intrusive to your overall visual combat experience.
- New characters created at level 1 will have a free respec issued upon creation of the character to allow new players the opportunity to change their race/class without losing any of their starting time as they become more familiar with the game.
- All current players will receive a free respec during the update, and all CCS players will now be able to "bank" respecs, meaning if you are issued a respec and you don't use it at that time, then you receive another respec...you then have two respecs on your record you can use (rather than the previous situation where you could only have one respec at any time). Your private character sheet view will show how many respecs you have available if you need to check to see if you have one.

New for Sim Owners:
- New CCS Payments System, using an affiliate vendor system that allows the sim owner to place this or her payment system anywhere on the sim without the need for a CCS administrator.
- Payments for CCS access will now be tracked on the CCS database and are viewable by sim admins on their sim admin page to enable the admin to review payment history.
- The CCS database will inform sim owners/admins by instant message when his or her next payment is due.
- The GTFO System: Many chained CCS sims have run into a lot of problems when dealing with extreme griefers, because not all CCS GMs are estate managers within all sims in the chain. The new GTFO system will allow all sims that are GTFO-enabled to be estate ban linked, which means typing one name into one page on the CCS database will immediately estate ban and eject a griefer from a sim they are griefing and prevent them from accessing all the attached sims in the same chain.

For Players and Developers:

- API 3.0: Yes, the great white unicorn is finally coming! We've been talking about it for awhile and it's almost ready for launch.
- API 3.0 will feature the same new security schema the new CCS meters are using, preventing any method of exploitation of the API by attempting to send illegitimate communications piggybacked on the dynchan through a weapon or any other method.
- API 3.0 brings new features to the API system that allow for more realistic developmental control of the total "power" of a weapon, keeping most weapons in the CCS system in line with each other without the need for constant tweaking and updates on the 3rd party developer's side.
- API 3.0 also makes developing new products a snap, as the developer can simply create a weapon profile and build the weapon's enhancement definitions within the API 3.0 interface. This makes weapons enhancements editable in real-time without any need for reissuing a release.
- API 3.0 will allow us to finally open the API market to new developers interested in becoming involved in CCS 3rd party development with the new "fair development" structure system we've developed. This should keep "damage wars" and API weaponry in general from dictating the outcome of CCS combat.

So as you can see folks, we've actually been hard at work in the background developing several new systems that we wanted to get out the door to improve the overall functionality of the system, along with the simple CCS 1.0.5 meter update that has been delayed for quite some time.

We are currently testing a few facets of the release and will be moving API 3.0 and the CCS Payment system into wider-scale testing over the next week or two. Once we have all these things sanded off and ready for the live environment, we will push them all pretty much all at the same time, and improve the overall quality of the game and its component parts in all facets, rather than "nickel and dime" our way through the various new additions.

Your patience has been much appreciated. Have a little more patience, and you will very soon see the payoff for the long wait. Thanks for your support and have a great day!